From Here to Eternity

Thanks to everyone for your blog entries! They helped keep the site fresh over the 4th of July holiday while I took a break.

The first post about marriage prep. in the LDS church bothered me because it’s so true. In Utah it seems members of the church tend to get married young (I was 20) and often have speedy courtships (I know one couple that got engaged after two days and are not having trouble), which I think is due to the culture, but more so the goal of staying chaste until marriage. My husband and I agree that having sex was the big push for us to getting married when we did, luckily it's been good for over a decade since there was more to our relationship than raging hormones.

I find it hypocritical that there's a big focus on glossy Ensign story marriages, but the only counseling or guidance you receive are temple prep. courses and those aren't even about marriage but the temple being "sacred" not "secret" as they say. Well, the big secret is how to maintain that temple marriage for oh, say… eternity! What can you expect though when the church has a lay clergy like “Larry the bricklayer,” now the bishop, who isn't prepared (educationally and already has a day job) to do six months of marriage and finance counseling. His marriage seems to be barely floating along and he's probably up to his neck in debt himself, so what’s he got to say that two randy twenty-something’s still living with mom and dad will listen to?

Yes, there is a huge gap between the LDS vision of marriage and the reality. If marriage and the family are one of the church's keystones, then the best way to fix problems is not by focusing a few conference talks and mag articles on how to improve our marriages, but by instead spending our own tithing resources on giving couples the counseling they’ll need to make sure they can face mortality and eternity together. After all, eternity's a long time to spend with someone you married because you were horny without options.